When setting requirements for a next-generation bomber, USAF should emphasize its conventional role, with the nuclear mission a distant second place. That’s the view of Barry Blechman, a member of DOD’s Defense Policy Board and president of DFI International. Blechman...

The recent decision to move the in-service date for a next-generation bomber to 2018, announced in the QDR, is a good thing, Blechman added. The change creates motivation simply did not exist when the target date for a new system...

First, the feds lost computer components containing vital data on 26 million veterans and other military personnel, raising fears of mass identify theft. Then, it offered government-funded credit monitoring to the vicitimized vets. Now, all signs are that the Bush...

The 15th Airlift Wing, Hickham AFB, Hawaii, took delivery on July 18 of its eighth and final C-17 advanced airlifter, completing a remarkable transformation of the unit. The new C-17 was named “Spirit of Kamehameha-Imua,” after one of Hawaii’s most...

US Air Force F-15E Strike Eagles flying over Baghdad Monday spotted four men digging beside a road—setting a chain of events in motion that led to derailment of an attempt to bury improvised explosive devices. The F-15E pilots notified the...

Lt. Gen. Michael Wooley, head of Air Force Special Operations Command, told a Capitol Hill seminar Tuesday that AFSOC is adapting quickly to “extraordinary changes.” He asserted, “The AFSOC you will see a year from today will be much different...

The Air Force’s top special operator, Lt. Gen. Michael Wooley, told attendees at a Capitol Hill seminar Tuesday that, given his choice, the first asset he wants to recapitalize is Air Force Special Operations Command’s C-130s. “If I have a...

Evidence of Air Force Special Operations Command’s growth spurt is addition of a new wing, slated to take shape at Cannon AFB, N.M. AFSOC plans to shift the 16th Special Operations Wing from Hurlburt Field, Fla., to Cannon and re-establish...

If knowledgeable defense analyst Loren Thompson is right, the Air Force’s effort to produce a single widebody aircraft to replace its trio of older intelligence-surveillance-reconnaissance assets is a dead duck. The Quadrennial Defense Review relegated the E-10 multimission aircraft program...

The engineers at Arnold Engineering Development Center, Arnold AFB, Tenn., recently completed aerodynamic loads testing using a 12-percent scale model of the F-35 Lightning II (alias Joint Strike Fighter) in the facility’s 16-foot transonic wind tunnel. Prime contractor Lockheed Martin...

The Air Force has notified the 127 lieutenants being reconsidered by a special board about their fate. Officials elected to retain 22 of these junior officers, who got a second chance to remain on active duty when the service found...

According to Veterans Affairs, the FBI has ended its forensic examination of the laptop computer and external hard drive recovered last month with a “high degree of confidence” that the files containing personal data on more than 26 million veterans...

Hawaii Air National Guardsmen in seven F-15s fired AIM-7 Sparrow missiles at drones while flying over the Pacific Missile Range Facility off the coast of Kauai, as part of the 2006 Rim of the Pacific exercise. The airmen said that...

The Air Force’s top civilian and uniformed leaders gathered at Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio, last week for one of the service’s trio of yearly meetings, dubbed Corona. Gathering at Wright-Patt—with its Wright brothers heritage—offered another historical setting in keeping with the...

Aircrews of USAF C-130 Hercules tactical transports making stops at Tarin Kowt, Afghanistan, do so with engines running because it’s a high threat area. Air Force photojournalist MSgt. Orville Desjarlais reports that the 140-degree blast from the aircraft’s engines compounds the location’s triple digit temperature as the lone USAF aerial porter, TSgt. Philip Lester, quickly moves cargo and passengers off and on the Hercs. Lester has some help from another airman—firefighter SSgt. Walter Shutler—and the US Army soldiers he has been indoctrinating in aircraft cargo procedures.

Air Combat Command officials investigating the March 20 crash of a Predator unmanned aerial vehicle in Iraq say that the pilot flying the UAV erred when he decided to “turn off the aircraft’s Stability Augmentation System pitch and roll axes.”...

July 17, 2006 Sortie Type OIF OEF OIF/OEF Total ISR 14 7 21 CAS/Armed Recon 43 29 72 Airlift 160 160 Air refueling 40 40 Total 57 36 200 293 OIF=Operation Iraqi Freedom OEF=Operation Enduring Freedom ISR=Intelligence-surveillance-reconnaissance